A Memory Walk (And a Big Blow-Out Party!) For Patheos@5

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PATHEOS!

It’s been five years since Leo and Cathie Brunnick launched their digital areopagus, this place where people of different faiths can come together, discuss and engage. With some 100 faith traditions represented, Patheos has become the premiere host site for smart, serious and respectful conversations on controversial issues of religion, spirituality and ethics.

Since its inception, Patheos has become a formidable presence on the Internet, attracting committed Christians, determined atheists and ardent evangelicals, both people with the conviction of faith, and those who are seeking.

Here’s how I know that Patheos has become one of the top “go-to” religion sites on the Internet: I came on board in March 2012; and since that time, Seasons of Gracehas been read more than 1.5 million times by 685,000 people in 218 different countries.

I count my fellow bloggers among my friends, and have had the opportunity to meet up with a number of them. (As proof, I’m including a few photos that I’ve been able to dig up from our fun times together.)

With Will Duquette in Los Angeles, 2014

I’ve gotten to know some of my readers personally, too, and I’ve enjoyed the conversations that have developed.

With Elizabeth Scalia at the Vatican Blogfest, May 2011

TODAY, AS WE ALL CELEBRATE THE BRUNNICKS’ BOLD VISION, I thought I’d take a trip down memory lane, recollecting some of my favorite posts from the past. I arranged them topically because… well, just because.

FEATURES

WHERE THE LOVE OF GOD GOES: The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.On one of our first road trips together, my husband and I stopped at the Sault Locks at Sault Ste. Marie, in northern Michigan, and photographed a ship which was passing through. Only years later, looking at our old 35mm slides, did we realize that we’d caught some extraordinary shots of the Edmund Fitzgerald, the great freighter which was doomed to sink in the Great Lakes. Here are the photos, and my reflection on the men who died.

SHEPHERD IN COMBAT BOOTS: A Conversation With Fr. Kapaun’s POW Friend. We were traveling in South Carolina when I stumbled upon this story. I phoned South Carolina native Bill Funchess, who had been thrown into the same hut with Fr. Emil Kapaun when both were prisoners of war during the Korean War. The stories he told me will bring tears to your eyes.